It's a Stunt

Over the weekend, the International House of Pancakes, or IHOP, as they are often called, announced a temporary change in their name to IHOB, without any indication of what that was supposed to mean. Today we learned that the “B” stands for “Burgers,” and the temporary measure is part of the launch of their new line of burgers. There’s been the amount of chatter you would probably expect out there in cyberspace, or at least in the comments sections of the various articles about this promotion, with some customers claiming that the last thing they want to smell in the morning while at breakfast would be burgers cooking, while others applaud the “free” publicity the stunt is generating. Personally, I’m disappointed…

You can pick up some of the articles about this promotion here or here, if you have a mind to. My personal disappointment stems from the fact that IHOP has already got a number of burgers on their menu, including two of the ones they are pushing for this new promotion. I haven’t been in to an IHOP location to see if they’ve really added anything new, but I’ve been eating one of the products mentioned by name in the Market Watch article for years now – pretty much any time we go to IHOP at a non-breakfast time of the day and I don’t feel like eating chicken and waffles…

Now, I would be the first to admit that it is difficult for an established brand like IHOP to change its public image after this many years. At least three generations of customers (possibly five by now) have associated the company’s restaurants with breakfast foods served more or less 24/7, with a smattering of other menu items for people who may not want to eat pancakes at three in the afternoon. This ignores the fact that the IHOP menu is made up of at least as many non-breakfast items as the more traditional faire with which it is associated, or that the company’s biggest advantage is probably the same reliable uniformity that supports most other national chain restaurants, rather than pancakes, waffles, and bizarrely-named breakfast specials. I’m skeptical about the current promotion, however…

It isn’t difficult to figure out that a restaurant chain most closely associated with breakfast foods would want to promote its non-breakfast options in an attempt to increase customer traffic at the other times of the day. In fact, IHOP has been running television spot (and in earlier times radio and print media ads as well) for as long as I can remember, without any noticeable change to its customer demographics or peak operations times. I couldn’t tell you for sure without auditing their books – and nearly all of the IHOP locations are franchised, so even that might not help – but it would appear that the company is going to need more than advertising stunts to change these stats…

What, exactly, the company could do to draw more customers for lunch and dinner shifts isn’t clear from the articles, or from my observations as a long-time customer, for that matter. Without bar facilities available they can’t really expect to take on Chili’s, TGI Fridays, Red Robin, or the other players in that segment, and with kitchen operations (mostly) limited to frying things or toasting things it’s difficult to see what other segments they could move into. They can’t attempt to implement greater differentiation without massive upgrades to their facilities and equipment, and if they attempt to go low cost they run the risk of bumping into McDonald’s and Burger King on the low end, or losing market share to Denny’s and Waffle House in their current segment, or possibly both…

It should be interesting to see whether this promotion will lead IHOP into a major change in menu, marketing, or operational strategy – or whether it’s just another marketing stunt that no one will remember by this fall…